Download Dynamics of extraclassical surround modulation in three types of V1

J Neurophysiol 105: 1306 –1317, 2011.
First published January 12, 2011; doi:10.1152/jn.00692.2010.
Dynamics of extraclassical surround modulation in three types of V1 neurons
Yong-Jun Liu, Maziar Hashemi-Nezhad, and David C. Lyon
Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, School of Medicine, University of California, Irvine, California
Submitted 4 August 2010; accepted in final form 11 January 2011
area 17; center-surround; facilitation; feedback; feedforward; horizontal connections; infragranular; spatial summation; suppression
(V1) are typically composed
of a classical receptive field (CRF) center and an extraclassical
surround (Albright and Stoner 2002; Allman et al. 1985;
Fitzpatrick 2000). Whereas cell responses are driven by center
stimulation, the surround plays a more modulatory role that is
thought to be important in figure ground segregation and in
forming the building blocks of form perception (Seriès et al.
2003; Sillito et al. 1995; Zipser et al. 1996). Previous studies
have suggested that the center responses of most V1 cells are
suppressed by inclusion of surround stimuli (Jones et al. 2001;
Sengpiel et al. 1997; Walker et al. 2000), with maximal
suppressive modulation when the center and the surround have
the same orientation and spatial frequency (Akasaki et al.
2002; DeAngelis et al. 1994; Knierim and Van Essen 1992;
Levitt and Lund 1997; Walker et al. 1999).
However, even under these optimal stimulus conditions, not
all V1 cells are suppressed by surround stimuli. Instead, in
about one-quarter of the cells, responses will saturate and
exhibit a plateau-like tuning profile (DeAngelis et al. 1994;
NEURONS IN PRIMARY VISUAL CORTEX
Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: D. C. Lyon, Dept. of
Anatomy and Neurobiology, School of Medicine, Univ. of California, Irvine,
CA 92697-1275 (e-mail: [email protected]).
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Sengpiel et al. 1997; Walker et al. 2000). In addition, there is
a third, more rarely encountered type of V1 cell that shows
neither suppression nor saturation of response to increasing
stimulus size, but rather increases in firing rate (Cavanaugh et
al. 2002a; Gilbert 1977; Li and Li 1994). Thus three types of
V1 cells can be characterized, suppressive, plateau, and facilitative, on the basis of their responses to increasing stimulus
size beyond their CRF.
Results from previous studies examining the dynamics of
surround suppression have helped unravel the underlying
mechanisms of surround modulation for suppressive cells. For
example, it has been shown that there is an early suppressive
component (Alitto and Usrey 2008; Xing et al. 2005) that
likely arises through relatively fast feedforward lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) afferents that already exhibit extraclassical surround suppression (Alitto and Usrey 2008; Ozeki et al.
2004; Sceniak et al. 2006; Solomon et al. 2002; Webb et al.
2005a). In addition, there is a second component that develops
later in time (Chen et al. 2005; Xing et al. 2005) and is likely
to be mediated instead through cortical mechanisms, which
propagate more slowly (Bringuier et al. 1999; Girard et al.
2001; Grinvald et al. 1994; Schwabe et al. 2006).
Previous studies on surround dynamics, however, have not
included analyses of nonsuppressive modulation. Therefore, in
the present study we have investigated response dynamics of
all three types of surround modulation found in V1 (suppressive, plateau, and facilitative) using drifting sinusoidal gratings
of various radii. Our results reveal that there are two stages of
surround modulation: 1) early surround modulation that is
mainly suppressive regardless of cell type and may rely on
feedforward mechanisms because of rapid onset, and 2) a
secondary surround modulation that evolves later in time, can
be suppressive or facilitative depending on the cell type, and
may be generated through more slowly propagating cortical
circuits.
METHODS
Animal Preparation and Recording
The experiments were performed in 13 adult cats weighing 2.4 –5.0
kg and of both sexes. All procedures were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of California, Irvine. Animals were initially anesthetized with a mixture of
ketamine (21 mg/kg im) and xylazine (3 mg/kg im). Anesthesia was
maintained with isofluorane (0.2– 0.6%) in a 67:33 mixture of nitrous
oxide and oxygen through artificial respiration. ECG, EEG, and
expired CO2 were monitored throughout the entire experiment to
ensure proper level of anesthesia. To prevent eye movements, neuromuscular blockade was induced with an initial bolus of vecuronium
bromide (0.6 mg/ml iv) and maintained for the duration of the
experiment with 0.15 mg/ml at a flow rate of 2.0 ml·kg⫺1·h⫺1 mixed
with dexamethasone (0.5 mg·kg⫺1·h⫺1 iv) in a solution of 5% dex-
0022-3077/11 Copyright © 2011 the American Physiological Society
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Liu Y, Hashemi-Nezhad M, Lyon DC. Dynamics of extraclassical surround modulation in three types of V1 neurons. J Neurophysiol 105: 1306 –1317, 2011. First published January 12, 2011;
doi:10.1152/jn.00692.2010.—Visual stimuli outside of the classical
receptive field (CRF) can influence the response of neurons in primary
visual cortex (V1). While recording single units in cat, we presented
drifting sinusoidal gratings in circular apertures of different sizes to
investigate this extraclassical surround modulation over time. For the
full 2-s stimulus time course, three types of neurons were found:
1) 68% of the cells were “suppressive,” 2) 25% were “plateau” cells
that showed response saturation with no suppression, and 3) the
remaining 6% of cells were “facilitative.” Analysis of the response
dynamics revealed that at response onset, activity of one-half of
facilitative cells, 70% of plateau cells, and all suppressive cells is
suppressed by the surround. However, over the next 20 –30 ms,
surround modulation changes to stronger suppression for suppressive
cells, substantial facilitation for facilitative cells, and weak facilitation
for plateau cells. For all three cell types, these modulatory effects then
stabilize between 100 and 200 ms from stimulus onset. Thus our
findings illustrate two stages of surround modulation. Early modulation is mainly suppressive regardless of cell type and, because of rapid
onset, may rely on feedforward mechanisms. Surround modulation
that evolves later in time is not always suppressive, depending on cell
type, and may be generated through different combinations of cortical
circuits. Additional analysis of modulation throughout the cortical
column suggests the possibility that the larger excitatory fields of
facilitative cells, primarily found in infragranular layers, may contribute to the second stage of suppression through intracolumnar circuitry.
EXTRACLASSICAL SURROUND DYNAMICS IN V1
trose and lactated Ringer. Pupils were dilated with 1% atropine sulfate
solution, and the nictitating membranes were retracted with 2.5%
phenylephrine hydrochloride. Zero-power, air-permeable contact
lenses were fitted to each cornea, and 3-mm artificial pupils were
placed in front of the eyes.
A craniotomy was made above the dorsal surface of area 17 (V1).
Extracellular recordings of single cells were made with epoxy-insulated tungsten microelectrodes (5–7 M⍀; FHC, Bowdoin, ME). Electrode penetrations were made perpendicular to the cortical surface,
and cells were recorded at all cortical depths. Visually evoked action
potentials of single neurons were amplified and isolated by an Xcell-3
four-channel amplifier (FHC) and then fed into a computer running
EXPO software (courtesy of Peter Lennie). Spikes were saved at 1-ms
resolution for further analysis using custom MATLAB software.
Visual Stimuli
Data Analysis
Aperture tuning curve fitting. Aperture tuning curves were fitted by
a difference of Gaussian (DoG) function
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兰
s
e共⫺x ⁄ re兲2dx ⫺ Ki
⫺s
兰
s
⫺s
e共⫺x ⁄ ri兲2dx ⫹ R0
(1)
in which Rs is the response evoked by different aperture sizes. The
free parameters, Ke and re, describe the strength and the size of the
excitatory space, respectively; Ki and ri represent the strength and
the size of the inhibitory space, respectively; and R0 is the
spontaneous activity of the cell.
To evaluate how well our experimental data was explained by the
model, we calculated the coefficient of determination (R2) using
冋
R2 ⫽ 1 ⫺
⁄
兺Nj⫽1 共Rn ⫺ Fn兲2 兺
N
j⫽1
共 R n ⫺ R 0兲 2
册
(2)
where Rn is the responses to the jth stimulus, Fn is the predicted value,
and R0 is the mean response of the actual data (Freeman et al. 2002).
Across the population, the mean R2 for 2-s stimuli is 0.86 ⫾ 0.09.
Definition of modulatory cell types and their CRF. In our study,
cells with suppressive, plateau, and facilitative extraclassical surrounds were defined on the basis of their tuning profiles to a series of
gratings drifting within circular apertures of varying diameter. Each
aperture was presented for 2 s, and classification of the three modulatory cell types is based on this full time course.
Suppressive cells were defined as those showing a response attenuation ⱖ5% to stimuli beyond their CRF (see examples in Figs. 1, A
and B, and 2A). The CRF of suppressive cells was determined by
parameter re from Eq. 1 (mean re ⫽ 9.3 ⫾ 4.6°), which was similar to
the aperture size that evoked the maximum response (mean 9.6 ⫾
3.9°; t-test, P ⫽ 0.14; Sceniak et al. 1999).
Plateau cells were defined as those that either showed ⬍5% suppression or a saturation of response to aperture sizes larger than the CRF (see
examples in Figs. 1C and 2B). As described above for suppressive cells,
the CRF size of plateau cells was also determined by the parameter re
from Eq. 1, consistent with earlier reports describing plateau cells (DeAngelis et al. 1994; Walker et al. 2000).
Facilitative cells were defined as those that exhibited no saturation,
but instead showed a monotonic response increase to increases in size
of the stimulus aperture (see examples in Figs. 1D and 2C). For such
cells, the size of the CRF (center) was determined by locating the
annular minimum response field (5% above background; Cavanaugh
et al. 2002a) to a series of annuli with variable inner diameters and a
fixed 30° outer diameter (see gray trace in Fig. 2C). Thus, although we
found that these cells always responded optimally to the largest
aperture presented (30°), the CRF of these facilitative cells was much
smaller, ranging from 4 to 10° in diameter (see arrow in Fig. 2C).
Importantly, if a stimulus was not presented to this small CRF region,
the facilitative cell was unresponsive to large stimuli. Overall, the
average CRF (7.0 ⫾ 2.5°) was comparable to, although somewhat
smaller than, the excitatory space constant derived from Eq. 1 (mean
re ⫽ 10.0 ⫾ 3.4°).
Simple/complex classification. The mean firing rate and first harmonic components of the accumulated response were computed for
each stimulus. V1 neurons were classified as simple or complex by
comparing the ratio of the first harmonic to the mean response to
drifting grating stimuli (Skottun et al. 1991).
Modulation index. To quantify the extraclassical surround modulation of all three modulatory cell types, we calculated a modulation
index (MI) using
MI ⫽ 共RECS ⫺ RCRF兲 ⁄ max共RECS, RCRF兲
(3)
where RECS is the response for maximum aperture size and RCRF is
the response for the CRF. A negative MI indicates suppression,
whereas a positive MI indicates facilitation.
Temporal dynamics of the surround modulation. To determine the
time course of extraclassical surround modulation, we fitted aperture
tuning curves at successive time points using the DoG model in Eq. 1 and
calculated MI values for each using Eq. 3. Cumulative time windows
were created in steps of 10 ms for the first 200 ms from stimulus onset
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The visual stimuli were generated by a G5 Mac computer with an
ATI Radeon 9200 graphics card running EXPO software. Stimuli
were displayed on a gamma-calibrated Viewsonic Graphics Series
G225f CRT monitor with a mean luminance of 50 cd/m2 and at a
viewing distance of 37 cm. The refresh rate was set at 100 Hz on the
noninterlaced monitor. The locations of the optic disc and the area
centralis for each eye were plotted daily using a fiber-optic light
source (Pettigrew et al. 1979).
Through visual stimulation of the dominant eye, the receptive field
center of each isolated cell was approximated under mouse control
with an ⬃4° diameter aperture of drifting square wave gratings at the
approximate preferred orientation. Maximal response was estimated
audibly. The exact position of the receptive field center was then
determined by reducing aperture size to as small as 1°. Spatial
eccentricities of all receptive fields in our experiment were constrained within 2° above and 16° below the area centralis.
Once the receptive field center was established, the CRF properties
were tested in detail in the following sequence: First, we reassessed
the preferred orientation of each neuron by varying the tilt of the
drifting sinusoidal gratings in 22.5° increments. Gratings were shown
at 100% contrast with spatial and temporal frequencies of 0.2 cycle/°
and 4 Hz, respectively. Next, optimal spatial frequency was determined by presenting ⬃10° gratings at the preferred orientation while
varying spatial period. It is worth noting that although this aperture
size did not always match the optimal receptive field size of the cell
(see below), it should nevertheless not affect spatial frequency tuning,
since this aperture size was more than twice the diameter of the spatial
frequency periods used (Mazer et al. 2002). Preferred temporal frequency was then assessed using gratings with the preferred orientation
and spatial frequency. The starting phase of all drifting gratings was
set to 0°. Finally, the optimal contrast for each cell was determined
through contrast-response profiles (10 –100%, in 10% steps).
Once the optimal parameters were determined, we then performed
spatial summation measurements (aperture tuning test) using circular
apertures of drifting sinusoidal gratings of various diameters (0.2–30°;
see Fig. 1). The gratings were presented at optimal contrast at the
preferred orientation, spatial and temporal frequencies, and in pseudorandom order. Each grating drifted for 2 s, followed by a 6-s
interstimulus interval during which the animal viewed a blank screen
presented at the mean luminance. This was repeated two to four times.
For cells that showed a monotonic increase in response up to the
largest aperture size (30°), a series of annuli with inner diameters
ranging from 0.2–20° were presented to determine whether a CRF
region was present within the large excitatory response field.
Rs ⫽ Ke
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EXTRACLASSICAL SURROUND DYNAMICS IN V1
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Fig. 1. Response time course of V1 cells to variations in stimulus diameter. A: suppressive simple
cell. B: suppressive complex cell. C: plateau complex cell. D: facilitative simple cell. Plots at left
show the fitted aperture tuning curve for each cell.
Histograms of the cell’s response time to apertures
corresponding to the black points in plots at left are
shown at right. To explore the time course of response, firing rates were calculated in cumulative
windows schematically illustrated by t1, t2, to tn
with steps of 10 or 50 ms from stimulus onset (see
METHODS for details). For some simple cells, such as
that shown in D, response onset was delayed because
stimulus phase was nonoptimal (phase was set to 0°
for all cells). For these cells, response onset was
shifted to be aligned with complex cells (see METHODS for details). Error bars are SE.
and in steps of 50 ms for the remainder of the 2-s stimulus time period.
For a schematic of the cumulative time windows used for each of the
aperture tuning curves, see Fig. 1. Figure 1, A and B, represent a simple
suppressive cell and a complex suppressive cell, respectively; Fig. 1C
represents a complex plateau cell; and Fig. 1D represents a simple
facilitative cell.
The reason for using cumulative time windows as opposed to
sequential windows of equal size was to improve the signal-tonoise ratio and allow for more reliable aperture fits at each 10-ms
bin. For some cells, the use of drifting sine wave gratings led to
little or no response in several 10-ms bins (see Fig. 1, A and B).
This was especially true for some simple cells that preferred lower
temporal frequencies, where several consecutive 10-ms bins would
be unresponsive (see example in Fig. 1D). Although the use of
cumulative time windows greatly improves fits of the aperture
tuning curves, it also sacrifices the precision at which changes in a
cell’s response can be pinpointed in time (see DISCUSSION).
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Response onset latency of simple cells depends on the initial phase of
the stimulus (Movshon et al. 1978; Skottun et al. 1991; Spitzer and
Hochstein 1985). The starting phase of our stimuli was always 0°, which
was not optimal for a number of our simple cells. As a result, 63%
(25/40) of them initiated firing substantially later, especially simple cells
preferring low temporal frequencies (see example in Fig. 1D). To compare results of all simple and complex cells, we realigned the onset
latency of these delayed simple cells (14/25 suppressive cells, 6/7 plateau
cells, 5/8 facilitative cells) to the average onset latency of our complex
cells. For this purpose, onset latency was defined as the earliest time that
responses to the optimal aperture size (CRF) reached 25% of maximum;
the mean latency of our complex cells was ⬃47 ms. Therefore, for each
simple cell, the earliest time point that simple cell responses reached 25%
of maximum was aligned to 47 ms (see schematic of the cumulative time
windows shown in Fig. 1D).
Orientation tuning properties. Responses to drifting gratings varying in orientation (presented at the optimal aperture size and the
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EXTRACLASSICAL SURROUND DYNAMICS IN V1
preferred spatial and temporal frequencies) were plotted. The orientation tuning curve was fitted using
2
2
Ros ⫽ Ro ⫹ Rpe⫺共Os ⫺ Op兲2 ⁄ 共2␴ 兲 ⫹ Rne⫺共Os ⫺ Op ⫹ 180兲2 ⁄ 共2␴ 兲 (4)
in which Os is the stimulus orientation, Op is the preferred orientation,
ROs is the response to different orientations, Rp and Rn correspond to
the preferred and nonpreferred orientation response, respectively, Ro
is the spontaneous response, and ␴ is the tuning width. The narrow-
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ness of the orientation tuning curve was measured as the half width at
half height (HWHH), which equals 1.18␴. The orientation selectivity
index (OSI), a measure of circular variance, was calculated using
OSI ⫽
ⱍ兺
n
Rnexp共i␪n兲
ⱍ 共兺 ⱍ
⁄
n
Rn
ⱍ兲
(5)
where ␪n is the nth orientation of the stimulus and Rn is the corresponding response.
Significance tests. Tests for significance were done using one-tailed
t-tests or one-way ANOVA.
RESULTS
Three Types of Extraclassical Surround Modulation
On the basis of fitted aperture tuning curves, cells could be
classified into three types: suppressive, plateau, and facilitative
(Fig. 2). The majority of our cells (108/158, 68%) were
suppressive, for which responses decreased 5% or greater to
aperture diameters beyond optimal. Figure 2A shows a representative suppressive cell. For this cell, the CRF (parameter re
from Eq. 1) was 9° (95 spikes/s). The strongest suppression
beyond the CRF occurred with the largest aperture diameter
presented (30°), reducing spike rate 34% (63 spikes/s).
Effects of the extraclassical surround were not always suppressive. Cells that exhibited no suppression to increasing
aperture diameters beyond their CRF were classified into two
groups, the more common plateau cells (40/158, 25%) and the
rarely encountered facilitative cells (10/158, 6%). Figure 2B
shows an example of a plateau cell. In this cell, responses
saturated around 10°, and no suppression was observed when
larger apertures were presented. This saturation may be caused
by a balance between excitatory and inhibitory inputs (Sengpiel et al. 1997). For these plateau cells, their CRF can be
represented by the excitatory space constant re in Eq. 1, as
described in previous work (DeAngelis et al. 1994; Walker et
al. 2000).
Figure 2C shows an example facilitative cell, responses of
which continuously increased with increasing aperture size.
Importantly, for facilitative cells, we also tested responses to
surround annuli and found that increasing the inner diameter
led to a marked decrease in firing rate (see gray trace in Fig.
Fig. 2. Three types of extraclassical surround modulation exemplified by
different V1 cells. Responses for each cell are plotted against the diameter of
stimulus aperture. A: a suppressive cell shows peak response at 10°, which is
close to the cell’s classical receptive field (CRF; size of the excitatory space
re ⫽ 9°, indicated by arrow), and then rapidly suppresses in response to further
increases in aperture size. B: an example plateau cell shows maximum
response to apertures of 10° and larger. Thus the response saturates but is not
suppressed by stimuli larger than 10°. The CRF (10°; indicated by arrow) for
plateau cells is represented by parameter re extracted from Eq. 1. C: for the
example facilitative cell, the response increases with increase in aperture size
and does not suppress or saturate (black trace). To identify the CRF, the
annular minimum response field was determined through a series of annuli of
varying inner diameters (gray trace). The cell has a CRF of 10° (indicated by
arrow). The modulation index (MI) is also plotted for each type of cell and
equals ⫺0.34 for the suppressive cell in A, ⫹0.07 for the plateau cell in B, and
⫹0.62 for the facilitative cell in C. Error bars are SE.
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We recorded from 158 neurons in V1. For each cell, aperture
tuning curves were plotted for responses to aperture gratings
with increasing diameters, shown drifting for a duration of 2 s
(see examples in Figs. 1 and 2). Each curve was then fitted by
a DoG function (Eq. 1).
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EXTRACLASSICAL SURROUND DYNAMICS IN V1
Dynamics of V1 Size Tuning
To determine the time course of extraclassical surround
modulation in V1, we segregated responses to different-sized
apertures into a series of cumulative time windows (see Fig. 1).
For each cell, we plotted size tuning curves for each window
and fitted them using Eq. 1.
Fig. 3. Simple and complex classification of the 3 modulatory cell types. Mean
response (F0) to drifting gratings is plotted as a function of the first harmonic
response (F1) for each cell. The majority of our neurons (118/158, 75%) fall
above the diagonal (F1/F0 ⬍ 1) and are considered complex cells based on the
criteria of Skottun et al. (1991). Conversely, the remaining 40 neurons fall
below the diagonal (F1/F0 ⬎ 1) and are regarded as simple cells. The majority
of suppressive (83/108; gray open circles) and plateau cells (33/40; gray filled
circles) are complex cells, whereas 8 of 10 facilitative cells (black open circles)
are simple cells.
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Figure 4 shows several examples of size tuning curves over
time for the different modulatory cell types. For suppressive
(Fig. 4, A–C) and plateau cells (Fig. 4, D–F), three examples
each are shown, whereas two facilitative cell examples (Fig. 4,
G and H) are shown. In addition, Fig. 4I shows the dynamics
of annulus response profiles for a facilitative cell. In Fig. 4, for
each neuron, the blue curves represent earlier time courses,
beginning as early as 30 ms from stimulus onset. Progressively
warmer colored curves represent cumulative responses at later
time windows up to 2 s (red traces). As a reminder, the
classification of each cell as suppressive, plateau, or facilitative
is based on the overall response curves to the full 2-s stimulus
presentation. All but one of these examples (see description of
Fig. 4H below) illustrate that extraclassical surround modulation of responses earlier in time was suppressive regardless of
cell type and evolved later into stronger suppression for suppressive cells, no suppression for plateau cells, and facilitation
for facilitative cells.
A prime example of the evolution of increasing suppression
strength for suppressive cells is illustrated in the traces of the
complex cell shown in Fig. 4A. For this cell, the tuning curve
at 40 ms (blue trace indicated by arrow) shows a CRF response
at 14 spikes/s that was suppressed 64% (MI ⫽ ⫺0.64, as
determined using Eq. 3) by the largest aperture (30°) to 5
spikes/s. However, at 120 ms (green trace indicated by arrow),
the CRF response was 58 spikes/s and responses were suppressed nearly 80%, down to 13 spikes/s, by the largest
aperture. Similar increases in suppression strength over time
are shown for the two other suppressive cells in Fig. 4, B and
C, with the latter of the two being a simple cell example.
The evolution of modulation over time in our plateau cells
from suppression to no suppression is best illustrated by the
complex cell shown in Fig. 4D. For this cell, from 40 to 70 ms,
suppression was quite strong. For example, the response at 40
ms (blue trace indicated by arrow) was 14 spikes/s for the CRF
aperture and dropped to only 2 spikes/s for the largest aperture
size, yielding 86% suppression (MI ⫽ ⫺0.86). However, by 90
ms and beyond, suppression was minimal such that the responses beyond optimal at 150 ms (green trace indicated by
arrow) were suppressed only 3% (MI ⫽ ⫺0.03): ⬃31 spikes/s
at CRF, down to 30 spikes/s at 30°. At even later cumulative
time windows, no suppression was evident. Weakening of
suppression strength over time is shown in the other two
examples as well; one of these is another complex cell (Fig.
4E) and the other a simple cell (Fig. 4F).
For facilitative cells, one-half (5/10) showed relatively
strong suppression early in time followed later by facilitation.
For the example complex cell shown in Fig. 4G, the response
peaked for a relatively small-sized aperture at 50 ms (blue trace
indicated by arrow) and was then suppressed 56% by apertures
of 30°. By 120 ms (green trace indicated by arrow), peak
response occurred for a larger stimulus and suppression was no
longer evident. At most of the subsequent time points, the cell
response increased as the size of the stimulus increases, showing neither suppression nor saturation. In some of the facilitative cells (5/10), on the other hand, suppression was not evident
at early time points, but rather weak facilitation was observed,
such as the blue 50-ms trace shown for the example facilitative
cell in Fig. 4H. Nevertheless, as indicated by the green 90-ms
trace in Fig. 4H, facilitation also became stronger later in time
for these cells.
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2C). This means that stimulation of the receptive field center is
necessary for the surround to have a facilitative effect. In this
way, facilitative cells, like suppressive cells, can also be
considered to have a CRF. The inner diameter at which annulus
responses dropped to within 5% of the mean background firing
rate (the annulus minimum response field; Cavanaugh et al.
2002a) was used to define the CRF of these facilitative cells.
For the example shown in Fig. 2C, this corresponded to 10°
(indicated by arrow) where the cell response was 10 spikes/s.
Center response was then facilitated 62% to 27 spikes/s by
presenting the full 30° aperture.
Simple and complex classification of modulatory cell types.
In addition to categorizing each neuron based on the type of
extraclassical surround modulation, we also classified them as
simple or complex by plotting the first harmonic (F1) against
the mean response (F0) to the drifting grating stimuli. The
results are illustrated in Fig. 3, where cells below the diagonal
(F1/F0 ⬎ 1) are classified as simple cells. With the use of this
criteria, only 40 cells of our entire population were simple cells
(25%), whereas the majority were complex cells (n ⫽ 118;
75%). Likewise, most of our suppressive (83/108, 77%) and
plateau cells (33/40, 83%) were complex as well (open black
and filled gray circles located above the diagonal in Fig. 3).
Conversely, there was a dramatic difference in the classification of our facilitative cells, because 8 of 10 were simple cells
(open black circles falling below the diagonal).
EXTRACLASSICAL SURROUND DYNAMICS IN V1
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Figure 4I shows the response profiles over time for annulus
testing of an example facilitative cell. In this example, the
minimum annulus response field used to define the CRF was
very consistent, 8°, across all time points (see arrow in Fig. 4I).
This invariance of CRF size over time was found for the
population of facilitative cells as well (data not shown).
Dynamics of the Extraclassical Surround Modulation
We next examined detailed dynamics of extraclassical surround modulation for the three cell populations. To do this, we
computed a MI for each cumulative time window of each cell
(see examples in Dynamics of V1 Size Tuning). Actual time
windows used for this analysis were in steps of 10 ms for the
first 200 ms after stimulus onset and then in steps of 50 ms for
the remaining time (see x-axis in Fig. 5).
The resulting evolution of extraclassical surround modulation
(MI) over time for the populations is plotted in Fig. 5. The black
trace represents facilitative cells, the dark gray trace represents
plateau cells, and the light gray trace represents suppressive cells.
Consistent with the individual examples shown in Fig. 4, for the
three populations, all cell types showed suppression early, even
facilitative cells (mean MI ⬍ 0; at response onset, ⬃30 ms from
stimulus onset in Fig. 5A). After this initial period, modulation
evolved into facilitation (MI ⬎ 0) for facilitative cells 20 ms later
(at ⬃50 ms from stimulus onset). Similarly, the MI of plateau
J Neurophysiol • VOL
cells crossed from suppression into facilitation ⬃100 ms after
stimulus onset. These evolving modulatory effects then stabilized
by ⬃200 ms for facilitative and plateau cells. For suppressive
cells, after the first 30 ms from response onset, surround suppression became even stronger as indicated by an increase in negative
MI beginning at the transition from 60 to 70 ms from stimulus
onset (see light gray trace in Fig. 5A). Suppression then hit
maximum strength at ⬃100 ms from stimulus onset, which is
mostly consistent with the maximum suppression latency shown
for monkey V1 neurons (Bair et al. 2003).
Thus, from our population results, we conclude that two types
of extraclassical surround modulation are present over time: an
early component that is suppressive even for facilitative and
plateau cells, and a later component that is either suppressive or
facilitative depending on the cell type. The early suppressive
modulation may rely on feedforward mechanisms because of its
rapid onset, and the surround modulation that evolves later in time
may be generated through different combinations of more slowly
propagating cortical circuits.
Receptive Field Size of Different Cell Types Across Cortical
Depth
The dynamics of extraclassical surround modulation that we
have observed thus far suggest the presence of suppression
early in time, followed by either facilitation or increased
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Fig. 4. Temporal dynamics of size tuning curves for the 3 modulatory cell types. A–C: 3 suppressive cell examples. D–F: 3 plateau cell examples. G and H: 2
facilitative cell examples. Aperture tuning curves in each cumulative time window are represented as a collection of colored curves for each cell. Blue curves
represent responses at earlier time points relative to stimulus onset. Warmer colored curves represent the cumulative responses at later time windows up to the
full 2-s stimulus presentation, represented by red curves. Time window (ms) and R2 of the fits for each tuning curve are shown at right. Arrows in A–H indicate
aperture tuning curves described in RESULTS. I: annulus response of a facilitative cell at different time windows. As indicated by the arrow, the annular minimum
response field is consistent across time (8°). A, B, D, E, and G show complex cell examples; C, F, H, and I show simple cells.
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EXTRACLASSICAL SURROUND DYNAMICS IN V1
Fig. 5. Mean temporal evolution of the extraclassical surround modulation for
the 3 modulatory cell types. A: the MI for suppressive (light gray trace),
plateau (dark gray trace), and facilitative cells (black trace) are plotted against
time. Each time point is cumulative. A negative MI represents suppressive
modulation, and a positive MI represents facilitation. The value 0 on the x-axis
represents stimulus onset time. B: average R2 of the fitted curves are plotted as
a function of each cumulative time window. Error bars are SE.
suppression depending on the cell type. The early onset of
suppression is consistent with a feedforward mechanism from
LGN and/or retina (Alitto and Usrey 2008; Nolt et al. 2004;
Sceniak et al. 2006), whereas later modulation may be generated through different combinations of cortical circuits. In
addition to the more commonly considered cortical sources
for extraclassical surround modulation, feedback and longrange lateral connections (Angelucci et al. 2002; Gilbert
1992), another source is through deeper layer neurons
within the same cortical column (Allison and Bonds 1994;
Bolz and Gilbert 1986). To address this issue, we plotted the
diameter of the aperture size eliciting a maximum response
for each cell and sorted by cortical depth encountered via
the electrode penetration (as shown in Fig. 6A). For facilitative cells, the optimal aperture was always the maximum
stimulus diameter (30°). For suppressive cells, the optimal
aperture was the aperture that corresponded to the peak
response. For plateau cells, the optimal aperture was defined
as the point of saturation (size corresponding to 95% of the
maximum response).
J Neurophysiol • VOL
Fig. 6. Receptive field size of maximum response of different modulatory cell
types as a function of cortical depth. A: receptive fields of maximum response
(illustrated by circle size) within each of 27 electrode penetrations relative to
cortical depth (␮m). Circle sizes range from 2 to 30° and are shown to scale
(see right). Cells located in the same penetration are plotted along the same
dashed vertical line. Light gray filled circles are suppressive cells, gray open
circles are plateau cells, and black open circles are facilitative cells. All but 1
of the facilitative cells are located ⬎1,200 ␮m below the cortical surface in
what is considered the infragranular layer, whereas suppressive and plateau
cells are distributed broadly across all layers (⬍600 ␮m approximates the
location of superficial layers, 600 –1,200 ␮m approximates the position of the
granular layer, and ⬎1,200 ␮m approximates the position of infragranular
layers). B: distributions of receptive fields of maximum response for the 3 cell
types.
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For each cell, we plotted the aperture size of the maximum
response within their respective columns relative to cortical
depth (see Fig. 6A). Cells from the same electrode penetration
are plotted along the same dashed vertical line. The size of
each circle is shown proportionally, with the largest apertures
representing 30° of visual angle. As is evident in Fig. 6A, all
but one of the facilitative cells (black circles) were located in
cortical depths corresponding to the infragranular layers of V1
(⬎1,200 ␮m). On the other hand, suppressive (light gray filled
circles) and plateau cells (gray open circles) were distributed
evenly across all cortical layers. Furthermore, as expected,
facilitative cells required larger aperture sizes for maximum
response than the other two cell types (see Fig. 6B). Average
optimal aperture sizes for suppressive (9.3 ⫾ 3.9°) and plateau
cells (10.1 ⫾ 4.1°) were similar and not significantly different
(P ⫽ 0.30), whereas aperture sizes for facilitative cells were
EXTRACLASSICAL SURROUND DYNAMICS IN V1
1313
significantly larger than those for suppressive (P ⬍ 0.001) and
plateau cells (P ⬍ 0.001).
It has been proposed that the surround temporal dynamics
and visual space covered by the full extraclassical receptive
field can only be accounted for through feedback from higher
order visual areas where individual neurons have large enough
receptive fields with faster propagation speeds than multisynaptic long-range lateral connections (Bullier et al. 2001; Cantone et al. 2005; Cavanaugh et al. 2002a; Schwabe et al. 2006).
However, the suppressive surround could arise from local
circuits. The large excitatory receptive fields of the deep layer
intrinsic facilitative cells may provide an alternative source for
the suppressive surround of V1 cells, since the sizes of these
receptive fields were comparable to receptive field sizes of
neurons found in higher visual areas (see DISCUSSION).
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Spatial Frequency and Orientation Tuning of Suppressive,
Plateau, and Facilitative Cells
Spatial frequency and orientation tuning are related to extraclassical surround modulation in that the maximal suppression occurs when the center and surround are presented with
the same orientation and spatial frequency (Akasaki et al.
2002; DeAngelis et al. 1994; Knierim and Van Essen 1992;
Levitt and Lund 1997; Walker et al. 1999). We analyzed spatial
frequency and orientation properties for all three cell types.
Figure 7 shows examples for cells located in the same electrode
track (track 3 from Fig. 6A), including four suppressive cells,
two facilitative cells, and two plateau cells. As shown in Fig.
7A, the preferred spatial frequency was comparable regardless
of modulatory cell type. Likewise, the preferred orientation
varied by no more than 22.5° from cell to cell (see Fig. 7B).
Furthermore, although orientation tuning width did vary, broad
and narrow band widths were observed for all three cell types.
Across the population, the spatial frequency distribution
shown in Fig. 8A was similar for all three types of modulatory
cells (ANOVA, P ⫽ 0.28). As illustrated in Fig. 8B, the
orientation tuning width (HWHH) was linearly related to the
OSI of the cells (R ⫽ 0.54, P ⬍ 0.001). Among the three types
of modulatory cells, the HWHH was not significantly different
(ANOVA, P ⫽ 0.14). On the other hand, the OSI of facilitative
cells was significantly higher than that of suppressive and
plateau cells (ANOVA, P ⫽ 0.02).This is perhaps due to most
of the facilitative cells being simple cells, and the simple cells
had higher average OSI values than our complex cells (Fig.
8D) (Heggelund and Albus, 1978; Leventhal and Hirsch, 1978;
Ringach et al. 2002; Schummers et al. 2007). Likewise, the
HWHH was generally smaller for simple cells, and the results
are statistically significant for suppressive and plateau cells
(P ⫽ 0.002 and P ⫽ 0.003, respectively; Fig. 8C).
DISCUSSION
We found that three different kinds of extraclassical surround modulation exist depending on the type of V1 cell:
suppressive, plateau, or facilitative. In addition, our response
dynamic analyses showed that these types of surround modulations are not stationary over time. Shortly after stimulus
onset, surround modulation is suppressive for all three types of
cells. However, this modulation evolves into facilitation for
facilitative and plateau cells. On the other hand, suppression
does not turn into facilitation at later time points for suppresJ Neurophysiol • VOL
Fig. 7. Spatial frequency and orientation tuning curve examples for cells within
the same penetration. Cells from this single penetration (track 3 in Fig. 6)
include 4 suppressive, 2 plateau, and 2 facilitative cells. A: the preferred spatial
frequencies are similar for each cell. B: orientation tuning curves vary but are
comparable across the 3 modulatory cell types. In addition, preferred orientations are similar for all the cells.
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EXTRACLASSICAL SURROUND DYNAMICS IN V1
sive cells, but rather increases in suppressive strength. In this
report we discuss our results in light of previous work and
consider how they relate to possible underlying mechanisms
involved in the evolution of different types of surround modulation over time.
Three Types of Extraclassical Surround Modulation
J Neurophysiol • VOL
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Fig. 8. Spatial frequency preference and orientation selectivity distributions for
the 3 modulatory cell types. A: the distributions of spatial frequency preference
for suppressive, plateau, and facilitative cells are similar (ANOVA, P ⫽ 0.28).
B: the orientation selectivity index (OSI) for all cells is plotted against the
orientation tuning width [half width at half height; (HWHH), shown in
radians], and they are linearly related (R ⫽ 0.54, P ⬍ 0.001). In addition, the
OSI of facilitative cells (which are predominantly simple cells) is significantly
larger than that of suppressive and plateau cells (ANOVA, P ⫽ 0.02). HWHH
is similar for the 3 types of cells (ANOVA, P ⫽ 0.14). C and D: mean HWHH
and OSI, respectively, for the 3 modulatory cell types. Across the population,
orientation selectivity and tuning of simple cells (solid bars) is better than that
of complex cells (hatched bars). For suppressive cells, these simple/complex
differences are significant for both HWHH and OSI, whereas for plateau cells
this difference is significant for only the HWHH. For facilitative cells,
simple/complex cell differences in HWHH and OSI are not significant,
probably due to only having 2 complex cells in the sample.
Stimuli extending beyond the CRF of a V1 neuron will often
lead to suppression of the cell’s excitatory center (Allman et al.
1985). It has been well documented that the strength of suppression induced by extraclassical stimuli depends on the
relationship between the stimulus represented in the center and
in the surround. For example, stronger suppression can be
obtained when stimulus properties such as orientation, direction, and spatial frequency of the center and the surround
match, even when these parameters are not optimal (Akasaki et
al. 2002; Cavanaugh et al. 2002b; DeAngelis et al. 1994;
Knierim and Van Essen 1992; Levitt and Lund 1997; Walker
et al. 1999). The stimuli we employed (full contrast gratings
that varied in diameter but always drifted in the preferred
orientation and temporal and spatial frequencies) were most
likely to lead to maximum suppression. Accordingly, we found
that 68% of our V1 cells were suppressed by an extraclassical
surround, which is consistent with previous work in both cat
and monkey (Jones et al. 2001; Sengpiel et al. 1997; Walker et
al. 2000).
Although the majority of our cells were suppressive, 32%
(50/158) did not show suppression, since they either reached a
plateau in their excitatory response (plateau cells, n ⫽ 40) or
continued to increase their firing rate with increasing stimulus
size (facilitative cells, n ⫽ 10). Plateau and facilitative cells
have been reported several times before (Cavanaugh et al.
2002a; DeAngelis et al. 1994; Kapadia et al. 1999; Knierim
and Van Essen 1992; Li and Li 1994; Polat et al. 1998;
Sengpiel et al. 1997; Walker et al. 2000). As such, it has been
postulated that responses of plateau cells may be generated by
a balance between excitatory and inhibitory inputs (Sengpiel et
al. 1997).
Responses of our facilitative cells increased with aperture
size and showed no saturation. In our entire experiment,
facilitative cells were rarely encountered (10/158, 6%), consistent with the idea that accurate estimation of the receptive field
center primarily yields a high incidence of nonfacilitative cells
(Cavanaugh et al. 2002a; Fitzpatrick 2000; Walker et al. 2000).
Interestingly, most of our facilitative cells were located in
infragranular layers of V1 (⬎1,200 ␮m), and a larger proportion were simple cells (8 of 10). This is consistent with earlier
work showing that a majority of neurons in layer 6 of V1 are
simple and that some have very large excitatory receptive fields
(Bolz and Gilbert 1989; Gilbert 1977; Leventhal and Hirsch
1978). The novel observation in our present work is that we
also found deep layer facilitative cells to have a relatively small
CRF, ranging from 4 –10°, and a facilitative extraclassical
surround of at least 30°. Similar results using narrow bars with
drifting gratings have been reported by Li and Li (1994) for cat
V1, although they were not attributed specifically to deep layer
simple cells. More recently, Haider et al. (2010) found that
fast-spiking interneurons and regular/thin-spiking pyramidal
neurons in cat V1 increased responses to larger natural stimuli
that exceeded the CRF. This subpopulation of GABAergic and
EXTRACLASSICAL SURROUND DYNAMICS IN V1
pyramidal cells is consistent with the small population of
facilitative cells found in our experiment and indicates that our
facilitative cells could be either inhibitory or excitatory. Furthermore, 50% of the facilitative cells in our sample showed
suppression early in time, followed later by facilitation,
whereas the other 50% of cells showed no evidence of suppression early in time. It could be possible that the inhibitory
and excitatory cells with large receptive fields described by
Haider et al. (2010) correspond to the two different suppression
dynamics we observed.
Mechanisms Underlying Extraclassical Surround Modulation
J Neurophysiol • VOL
suppression strength that peaks ⬃70 ms after response onset
for suppressive cells or facilitation that rises for another ⬃100
ms is indicative of even longer range lateral connections or
possibly multisynaptic lateral circuits. An intriguing possibility
for facilitative cells may be the involvement of Meynert cells,
which like most of our facilitative cells are found in infragranular layers of cat and monkey V1 (i.e., Gabbott et al. 1987;
Rockland and Knutson, 2001). Meynert cells are large pyramidal neurons that have been shown to have extremely longrange projecting axons, up to 8 mm (Rockland and Knutson,
2001), and could thus provide excitatory monosynaptic inputs
to facilitative cells that arrive as late as 80 ms after response
onset.
As explained in METHODS, the reason for using cumulative
time windows was to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and
allow for more reliable fits at each 10-ms bin. However, it is
important to note that the cumulative time point at which
suppression strength increases for suppressive cells or when
suppression switches to facilitation for the population of our
facilitative cells (20 –30 ms as shown in Fig. 5) is not the exact
point at which this signal begins to affect the cell’s response;
rather, it is when this influence has outweighed the influence of
an early suppressed response. Therefore, the true latencies for
these components are likely to be modestly shorter, by some
amount that is difficult to estimate.
Another likely contributor to extraclassical surround modulation is feedback from extrastriate visual cortex, which can
cover large regions of visual field corresponding to the extraclassical surround of V1 neurons (Angelucci et al. 2002; Bair
et al. 2003; Bullier et al. 2001; Cantone et al. 2005; Cavanaugh
et al. 2002a; Chen et al. 2005; Levitt and Lund 2002; Xing et
al. 2005) and usually targets excitatory neurons (Johnson and
Burkhalter 1996; Salin and Bullier 1995; Shao and Burkhalter
1996). In this way, feedback connections arising from a large
region of the visual field may contribute to the larger facilitative surround modulation that occurs later in time for facilitative and plateau cells. Feedback may also contribute to the later
increase in strength of suppression for suppressive cells via
intrinsic V1 relays onto local inhibitory cells (Schwabe et al.
2006). Because feedback axons are myelinated, these inputs
are likely to arrive similarly in time, if not sooner, to the typical
⬃2-mm long-range lateral connections described above (Angelucci et al. 2002; Bair et al. 2003; Schwabe et al. 2006).
Therefore, the effects of feedback projections should occur
within the first 20 ms beyond response onset (Xing et al. 2005).
In our experiments this time frame corresponds to the change
from suppression to facilitation for our facilitative cell population and the point where suppression strength begins to
increase for our suppressive cells (Fig. 5).
In addition to long-range lateral and feedback connections,
another possibility for later extraclassical surround modulation
is through connections within columns. Most of our facilitative
cells were located in deeper layers of V1 and were simple cells,
consistent with previous results showing that such cells are
found in layer 6 (Gilbert 1977). End inhibition of layer 4 cells
will disappear after inactivating layer 6 with GABA, indicating
that layer 6 cells account, at least partly, for surround suppression of cells in layer 4 (Bolz and Gilbert 1986; Bolz et al.
1989). Moreover, the inhibitory effects mediated by infragranular layers could be propagated throughout the column
(see Allison and Bonds 1994). In this regard, our dynamic
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Across the great majority of the neurons we recorded,
extraclassical surround modulation was suppressive at early
time points (at response onset) but later diverged into either
facilitation or even stronger suppression (Fig. 5). A feedforward mechanism from the LGN may account for this early
universal suppression, since LGN neurons already exhibit a
suppressive extraclassical surround (Alitto and Usrey 2008;
Solomon et al. 2002; Webb et al. 2005b). Furthermore, a
feedforward model without lateral inhibition, used to explain
suppression for simple cells, could also contribute to the
early suppression (Finn et al. 2007). A third possibility is
fast suppression arising from nearby cells within V1, especially for cells where suppression comes even before the
excitatory input to the CRF reaches spike threshold, as
shown in monkeys (Bair et al. 2003). In monkey, faster
feedforward propagation of the magnocellular compared
with the parvocellular pathway (Alitto and Usrey 2008; Lyon
et al. 2010; Schiller and Malpeli 1978; Vidyasagar et al. 2002)
may account for such an effect. Likewise, in cat, parallel
pathways of feedforward geniculocortical inputs from the
slower X and faster Y channels (Cleland et al. 1971; Lennie
1980; Sur et al. 1987) can provide the biological basis for such
a scenario.
Although on average early modulation of all the V1 cell
types was suppressive, later in time, surround modulations
evolved into two types. That is, modulation became positive
for facilitative and plateau cells, and for suppressive cells
modulation became even more strongly suppressive. These
later modulations may be generated through different combinations of cortical circuits. One candidate is long-range lateral
connections in V1, which tend to link cells with similar
functional properties, such as orientation preference (Buzás et
al. 2006; Callaway and Katz 1990; Gilbert and Wiesel 1989;
Kisvarday et al. 1997), direction preference (Roerig and Kao
1999), and ocular dominance (Yoshioka et al. 1996). Longrange lateral connections have been demonstrated to account
for extraclassical surround modulation, including facilitation
and suppression (Mizobe et al. 2001; Polat et al. 1998; Sceniak
et al. 2001). Importantly, the speed of horizontal connections
covering the extraclassical surround is slow (⬃0.1– 0.2 mm/
ms; Bringuier et al. 1999; Girard et al. 2001; Grinvald et al.
1994), which may contribute to the later modulation of our
results. For instance, as measured through cumulative time
windows, the change to stronger suppression for suppressive
cells and the transition from suppression to facilitation for
facilitative and plateau cells occurs ⬃20 –30 ms after response
onset (Fig. 5), which would correspond to long-range connections arising from cells located ⬃2–3 mm laterally. In addition,
1315
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EXTRACLASSICAL SURROUND DYNAMICS IN V1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Emily Grossman for helpful comments on this manuscript.
GRANTS
This work was partially supported by the Whitehall Foundation.
DISCLOSURES
No conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, are declared by the author(s).
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surround modulation results (Fig. 5) show that the evolutions
of stronger suppression and stronger facilitation occur over a
similar time course. Probably the most noteworthy feature of
these rarely encountered facilitative cells is that they have very
large excitatory receptive fields, far bigger than the excitatory
fields of other cells in V1, even within the same column
(Fig. 6). Most critically, however, these large facilitative
receptive fields match the diameter of the extraclassical
suppressive surrounds for the more commonly encountered
suppressive cells. As such, they are capable of contributing
to the more distal surround effects. Because facilitation
develops later in time and coincides with the onset and
continued development of the stronger suppression observed
for suppressive cells, we suggest that facilitative cells may
play a key role, perhaps directly as GABAergic interneurons
or through excitatory synapses onto inhibitory neurons
within the same cortical column.
Overall, our present results suggest that mechanisms underlying surround modulation combine a number of different
sources, including feedforward, intracolumnar, long-range horizontal, and feedback connections, and that these sources differ
depending not only on the cumulative time relative to stimulus
onset but also on the type of V1 cell.
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